Unconscionable
by justrumbelledearie
Summary: A dash of 'matriarchal alien society' and a rubber bed. (Rushbelle)


While French was being escorted from the holding cell by their silent, phosphorescent captors, she had barked an order at him over her shoulder.

"Get down on your knees, Dr. Rush! Put your palms on the floor. Eyes down, and _don't move_ until I come back."

The harsh tone was utterly at odds with her ordinarily placid disposition, but then, this situation had escalated rapidly_._

French's clipped words had commanded, but her wide eyes held a plea: _If you value your life, do as I say._ And because Dr. Nicholas Rush _does_ value his life—quite a lot, in actual fact—he kneels, and he waits.

It's been a damned _century_ since they left him here. His kneecaps burn, and his calves and feet tingle painfully. Beneath his flat palms, the burgundy floor is smooth—and _warm._

Perhaps the comfortable temperature indicates this cell is intended for long-term captivity? Narrow berths line the walls, and that's somewhat reassuring. The bunks are made of the same springy, gleaming material as the floor. Rubber, perhaps? Or maybe something akin to silicone?

_And yet_—it hasn't escaped his notice (not much ever does) that these burgundy floors, walls, and berths would be exceptionally easy to wipe clean should any fluids be spilled. Urine…or blood_._

This cell, unfortunately, would make for an excellent 'kill room.'

It's ironic that Dr. Nicholas Rush, ascetic scientist, will likely meet his end in an alien jail cell that looks like some kinky-as-hell nightclub. He never could stomach those loathsome places back on earth. His bachelor party—_Gloria had insisted, and her brother had provided it_—had been such a beastly trial.

It's also ironic that he'll probably meet his end beside the woman he least likes and most distrusts out of all the members of Destiny's crew. Well, save for that bastard Greer.

True, French may have a kindly, gentle disposition. True, she may be sought out in the mess hall and the common areas for laughter and conversation. She may even have earned her doctorate in psychology from a fine institution like Cal, but—_Rush knows._ He hacked his own personnel file back on Icarus Base. Regularly. He knows French recommended he be sent back to earth on a three month sabbatical—forcibly, if need be—for his own mental and physical health. And the damnable Powers That Be were prepared to follow her advice—_would have,_ if the attack hadn't followed shortly thereafter.

Rush hasn't forgiven, and he'll never forget.

Out of sheer spite, he refuses to address her as 'Dr. French,' though she's far too well-mannered to correct him. Mostly, he simply avoids her.

Luckily, Destiny is a large ship.

Unluckily, Rush suspects that the traitorous French may be the only thing standing between him and an easily effaced execution. A queasy, cold sweat has broken out across his brow, and he feels lightheaded. Thankfully, if he passes out, he hasn't far to fall.

With a soft chime, the door to the holding cell slides open, then slowly shuts with a quiet _woosh. _The door is transparent—made of thick glass? or sturdy lucite perhaps?—and the only light in the cell comes from the dim corridor.

Rush keeps his eyes deliberately trained on the floor. His arms are beginning to shake from a combination of nerves and fatigue. _Shite, he doesn't want to die here. Not when he's come so far._

"It's only me! Please—get up, Dr. Rush." And French helps him stagger to his feet, holding his elbow in a vise grip when his unsteady legs nearly give way. It used to be he could kneel or crouch for hours with no repercussions, working out formidable equations on the floor of his father's flat in Glasgow. But—he's not a young man anymore.

French leads him to one of the garish, glossy berths, tells him "sit here," (commands come easily to this woman, apparently), and stands in front of him, her fingers nervously twisting the hem of her green twill jacket.

"I'm sorry to leave you for so long. They had…quite a few questions."

French won't meet his eyes, and he wonders if this means he's going to die. It would be easier if she didn't fidget and drag it out, and he sharply tells her so.

"I won't let that happen," she assures him, but this answer is far too slippery for his taste. _False French,_ his frenetic mind chatters uselessly. _False French._

"What exactly do our _hosts_ have planned, then? Why did they bring us on-board?" He watches as French abruptly begins to pace, the fingers of her right hand unconsciously tapping against the glowing communication device that adheres to her temple. Their mute, eerie captors fastened a similar device to his own head, but they roughly removed it a short while later.

"They're looking for sentient life…" she explains.

"Well, they certainly found it," Rush cuts in. "The question is, what are they planning to _do_ with it?"

French halts and looks at him. It isn't exasperation he reads on her face (an emotion he knows intimately, displaying and receiving it in sizable quantities)—no, not exasperation. It's _pity._

Her condoling gaze sends his stomach straight down to his boots. If there had been time to eat his lunch rations today, he quite possibly would be spilling them all over this ugly, easy-care floor.

"I see," he says quietly. _I came so far. So damn far._

"No, Dr. Rush, you_ don't _see," French replies, and she hastily crosses the room to sit beside him, mimicking his hunched shoulders and the way he rests his elbows upon his knees.

"These creatures don't interpret sentience the way we do. They don't equate 'sentient life' with the capacity to reason. They equate 'sentience' with 'empathy,' as in, 'the ability to share the feelings and sufferings of another.'"

Rush snorts, staring at the white knuckles of his clasped hands.

"That seems to be their chosen undertaking: seeking out fellow creatures with empathy, studying them, and releasing them back into the wild, so to speak. It's as though we're a couple of red-necked wallabies, scooped up, tagged, and—"

"Wallabies—?" Rush spits out, trying to make sense of what this daft woman is saying.

"Sorry. It's an Australian bush animal. Anyway, from what I can gather," (and here French taps the glowing device on her temple), "these beings' ancestors were once engaged in a gruesome civil war—the result, they concluded, of an absence of empathy. After the dust settled, future generations made it their life's work to seek out and catalog fellow creatures with empathy—and to eliminate those who don't possess it."

"Well, that seems somewhat…_ironic,"_ Rush observes, and Belle laughs uneasily.

"Yes, well, when I tried to point out the incongruity, it got me nowhere. They've been at it for centuries. Sometimes it can be difficult to…change course." She sighs, staring at her own folded hands.

"How long until they release us 'back into the wild,' then? Are they capable of sending us back to the ship, or will we go back to the swamp planet where they took us?" Rush is breathing easier now, and his shoulders have straightened somewhat. It should still be another few hours before Destiny jumps.

"That depends on us, Dr. Rush," French replies uneasily, twisting a plain silver ring on her right hand. "While they were examining us earlier, they determined you to be…non-sentient. Without empathy."

Rush snaps his head up to look at her.

"What's worse," French continues, "they seem to be a matriarchal, pair-bonded society. They cannot conceive of an unmatched pair. They believe you are my male helpmate, and that you've…gone feral."

"Gone _feral_—?" Rush snarls, his hands clenching.

"I tried to explain how our society works, but it got muddied in the translation. At one point, they were ready to storm Destiny and put down _all_ the feral males." She shudders. "Then I back-peddled and acknowledged you _were_ my helpmate, that you were unique, and that it would cause me great anguish if any harm were to come to you. I appealed to their exalted empathy…"

_"And—?"_ Rush demands impatiently.

"And they offered me a 'superior' helpmate, one of their own who had lost his female to an illness. They found it unconscionable that a female should be paired with what they termed an 'insensate' male." French rests her forehead against the heels of her hands, looking wretched. "I _begged._ I was desperate, and I let them see it, but they were unmoved. Then, I came up with a mad idea. I claimed that your unique "sentience" was present, but that it is impossible for their kind to study it because it's only apparent during our coupling."

"Our—coupling?" _Has this daft woman been reading Harlequin romances in her quarters?_

"I simply thought the longer I talked, the better chance I had of coming up with a way to get us off this ship. I must have been subconsciously thinking of oxytocin and vasopressin—the attachment chemicals released during and after orgasm…"

"Yes, I'm aware of the basics of neuroscience, Miss French," Rush bites out, embarrassed and thoroughly gobsmacked. Can this truly be the content of the last conversation he is likely to have?

"Well—I miscalculated. They told me to prove it," she finishes, weakly, reaching into the deep pocket of her coat and removing a second neurotransmitter." They'll give us one hour. Afterwards, back to the swamp planet."

_"Prove it?_ This is _ridiculous,"_ he chokes out.

"Yes, it is." She stands and begins to pace again.

"It's _grotesque!"_

_"Yes,_ it's utterly absurd—but…it also might save your life. The neuroscience is sound, Dr. Rush. How else can they judge empathy levels within the human brain aside from dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin? They weren't always aware when I was lying to them, so this…_device_ cannot read thoughts. I suspect it only translates spoken language and registers various chemical fluctuations. This is our best—our _only_ chance—"

_"My_ best chance!" he counters. "_Your_ life is safe, regardless."

French swiftly crosses the room to crouch in front of him. She wraps her hands tightly around his clenched fists and promises, "It's both of us set free or neither. If it comes to it, I will fight. I won't leave you behind."

And—even though Rush knows that the decision ultimately won't be hers to make—it _is_ buoying to hear that French isn't willing to let him go gently into that good night. Perhaps she isn't quite so false or quite so hateful as he originally concluded.

"Why did you make me kneel?" he asks quietly, staring at her frayed green sleeves and bitten fingernails.

"Early on, I suspected it was a pair-bonded society with one member of the pair acting as the devotee. I also suspected they were displeased with you when they removed _this."_ French holds up the neurotransmitter. "And I hypothesized it would be beneficial if I could demonstrate you were docile. _Obedient."_ She laughs, and it is a hollow, cheerless sound. "I wasn't far off. My other degree is in Sociodynamics from Stanford. Useful today, yes, but if I would have known I'd one day be aboard an ancient spacecraft, I would have gone in for engineering."

Rush has nothing to say to this. Engineers are certainly more useful than sociologists and psychologists. But—if this particular psychologist manages to save his hide, he might possibly be willing to reconsider his opinion.

Hell, he might even be willing to start calling her 'Doctor.'

"Do you truly think it might work?" Rush asks quietly, humiliated, but allowing hope to creep in once more. _Just what the actual fuck is he saying?_

"I _do._ What's more, if my hypothesis is correct, and they're simply monitoring fluctuations in neurochemicals, I know how to affect yours. I studied attachment and empathy as a graduate assistant working under Dr. Arthur Alan at SUNY. Our work became rather famous in the field. Will you trust me, Dr. Rush?"

_Never!_ his limbic system shouts. _False French!_ his amygdala declares.

"Yes," Dr. Rush says aloud because he has already weighed and discarded every other viable option.

French rewards him with a small, tight smile, then carefully affixes the neurotransmitter to his sweating temple, brushing his shaggy hair back out of the way.

"Good. We'll just follow the standard template people use when they fall in love, only we'll speed things up a bit. Five minutes of revealing intimate details about our lives, five minutes of sustained eye contact, followed by thirty minutes of intercourse and as much continuous, skin-to-skin contact as we can manage."

Rush's tongue darts out and anxiously wets his lips. "You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet, French." _Fuck, thirty minutes of intercourse? Even in his prime, he never made it much past ten._

"Under lab conditions, the intimate conversation and sustained eye contact alone resulted in several marriages between test subjects that began as total strangers. Also, I think it's best if you call me 'Belle,' at least for the next hour. Do you prefer 'Nick' or 'Nicholas?'"

"Rush," he answers shortly. His throat is as dry as that last damned desert planet they visited. Is this truly happening? Could it possibly be another infernal simulation? Mandy somehow tormenting him for his supposed betrayal?

"My father is schizophrenic. When you asked for volunteers to stay aboard Destiny, the only reason I didn't step forward is that I'm all he has in the world. I worry about him every day—whether or not he's taking his medication, eating regular meals, paying the bills…" French sighs and seats herself on the floor in front of him, wrapping her arms around her knees. "The reason I avoid you, D—_Rush,_ is that you sometimes talk to yourself and scribble furiously in your little notebook and write things on the floors and walls—and it reminds me of _him,_ when he's caught in a spiral and losing his bearings. So I stay away, even though I know it's absurd."

French—no, _Belle_ lifts her head off her knees to look at him, and he stares back at her, nonplussed. So she's saying he behaves like a lunatic? To what purpose? What does it matter _now_ where he scribbles or how loudly he mutters to himself while walking Destiny's corridors?

"Intimate details, Rush, remember? Your turn. We're running out of time." She reaches up and taps his large wrist watch, waking him from his contemplative trance.

_Oh._ "Right, well…I was the _Dux Litterarum _whilst at Oxford." He raises his eyebrows. "Every year." Good enough?

"I'm not your grandmother, and this isn't a brag session. Intimate details, Rush. I didn't lose my virginity until I was twenty-four. It was to a fellow psychology student, and he had difficulty maintaining an erection. He was nervous, I think, or possibly closeted. It was a miserable, humiliating experience. I cried afterwards. Your turn. _Go."_

_Well, fuck._ "I've only ever been with one woman, technically. My wife. And I haven't been with anyone since she died several years back. If we make it beyond 'sustained eye contact,' I won't be lasting very long. Then again, with murder-minded aliens watching, I also might have difficulty maintaining an erection. Sorry for any bad memories it stirs up."

They stare at each other for a beat, and Belle's lips quirk upwards the smallest fraction. "Seeing as our captors have no experience with humans or intimate relations between humans, they won't be in any position to judge the quality of our _coupling,_ now will they? And if it gets us off this ship intact, I'll call it the best root of my life regardless. If it ever comes up in polite conversation over drinks in the mess hall, I'll say you smashed my back out properly."

"And I assume that's a good thing?" _Is she really trying to get a laugh out of him? In this goddamn alien fetish nightclub kill room? Christ, what an odd woman._

"It's a most excellent thing, yes." Belle lightly touches the underside of his whiskery chin with two fingers, tilting it upwards so that he meets her steady, blue eyes. "I've gotten myself off to fantasies of you since the preliminary screening interview I conducted back on earth. Sometimes I used the picture from your personnel file, Rush." She doesn't break eye contact, and she doesn't withdraw her hand from his chin.

He swallows hard, scrambling for a deflective joke about odd psychology_—didn't she just say he reminded her of her unhinged father?—_but the words die on his dry lips. Instead, Rush bites his tongue while imagining French—no, _Belle—_this beautiful woman staring calmly back at him—with _his_ picture propped up on her nightstand and her fingers curled and thrusting between her bare legs. It's a damn heady thought—even in his own infrequent fantasies, he's never imagined a beautiful woman riding her own hand, conjuring visions of _him,_ her dark hair spread out over the pillow, and her cheeks flushed with desire and exertion.

To his utter astonishment, his inert cock gives an interested twitch, and he hears himself suck in his breath and mutter: "I might be able to do this, if you keep on talking about it." His eyes dart down to where his prick has begun to fill out the left-side inseam of his jeans, and Belle follows his gaze, then gently redirects his eyes back to her face with a soft tap to the rough underside of his jaw.

_"Eye contact,"_ Belle reminds him faintly, then places a warm palm on either one of his sharp knees, gently spreading them farther apart, increasing the pressure on his hardening cock. She shifts, moving her hands slightly higher up his tense thighs, and rises on bent knees between his open legs.

"Your provoking voice, your arrogance, the way your hair fell over your collar, your intelligent brown eyes, your elegant hands, the way you walked—_everything._ The attraction was immediate and, unfortunately, unshakable. It had been so long since I had felt anything like it. Even when you made it abundantly clear you preferred your own company to anyone else's, even when you endeavored to be as disagreeable an ass as possible, even when you were absolutely insufferable…well, I had the picture from your personnel file, and _he_ was agreeable enough."

Rush laughs nervously. Yes, he's an insufferable ass, and he knows it. But Belle's warm hands have inched higher and higher while she tells him so, nearly reaching his fully erect cock. He shifts restlessly on the bench, wanting the relief of her fingers pressing against him.

She disappoints him by lifting her right hand to cup his unshaven cheek, running her thumb over the hollow left by weeks of substandard nutrition. Belle's blue eyes are remarkably vivid—hypnotizing, almost. His skin prickles where her fingers press, and his denim has become agonizingly tight, crushing his erection against his left thigh.

Rush shifts again upon the smooth berth when she offers: "Would you like to hear what I imagined, looking at your picture?"

His rational mind (always present) knows this could all be a little show, put on for his benefit. A kindness to ease him into a difficult encounter. Yet—if this _is_ to be his last hour of consciousness, perhaps this isn't the worst way to spend it, listening to a beautiful woman use the low register of her voice to describe how she wants him. Hell, he hasn't been properly touched—_not really_—for years.

And even if it's all a show, well, he can certainly muster up a little appreciation for her courage and her kindness.

_"Yes, I want to hear it,"_ he breathes, resting his cheek against her open palm.

Belle smiles warmly, tracing the outline of him through the denim with her fingertips, over and over, never touching exactly where he needs her to touch. When he forgets himself enough to groan and shift so that her thumb finally presses against the tender, eager head of his cock, she nods, encouraging. Her own breath is coming quicker. If this is nothing more than a story, it's a story that excites her as well.

Belle whispers: "On earth and on Icarus Base, my fantasies were just standard fare. I liked to imagine your soft hair tickling the insides of my thighs while you enthusiastically ate me out. That was a favorite. I liked to imagine unfastening this belt buckle…"

Pausing, Belle reaches up to grip the leather of his belt, raising her eyebrows slightly, and when he makes no move to stop her, just watches with his eyebrows drawn together and his chin tucked down, she takes hold of the silver buckle and works the thick leather back through it.

"…I'd imagine undoing your belt buckle, going down on my knees, and sucking you off. I liked to imagine how your cock would fill up my mouth and what it might take to get you to make some noise. I imagined you loved to have your balls licked and sucked and pressed against the roof of my mouth. I imagined tugging them a little while I sucked you."

Rush's fingers clench, and he groans when she finally manages to undo his belt, impatiently tugging it free. Of his own accord, he reaches for the top button of his jeans and struggles with the zipper, eager to give his aching cock some room to breathe.

Belle's warm hand pauses to cup the length of him, and he groans again, the noise loud and startling within the silent cell.

"When we came aboard Destiny, my fantasies became darker. I didn't have your picture from the file any longer. All I had were images of you shouting and stalking the corridors looking angry and haggard—so I adapted. I imagined what it would be like if I was unsuccessful in avoiding you, however hard I tried. I imagined walking along a deserted corridor one night and you suddenly appearing, scowling, furious as hell…"

Belle's right hand travels upwards into his hair. She uses just a trace of fingernails as she scrapes along the side of his skull, then holds the hair at the back of his head firmly, rhythmically clenching and unclenching her hand. Unconsciously, Rush's lips part and his eyes shut. A quick tug on the back of his hair reminds him to keep them open.

He's never stared into someone else's eyes this long, and he feels like he's drowning.

"What did I—" He clears his throat. "What did I do when I saw you in the corridor?" His hoarse voice sounds different, the thick accent growing thicker, the tone lowering. He's having trouble getting enough air.

"You were very obliging. No shouting, no eye rolling. You shoved me up against the metal wall, yanked up my skirt, and fucked me fast and hard. Really bashed my back out." She smiles. "And while you fucked me, you held a hand over my mouth so I wouldn't give us away. In this little fantasy, you brought me off in seconds."

Rush swallows hard, willing the hand cupping his cock to rub him harder through the thick denim. "That sounds a bit—feral," he mutters, "Not very empathetic."

"It will be our secret, then, since it never happened. Just like this never happened…"

And she tilts her head upwards and brushes her lips over his, rubbing him harder through his pants.

"Was that alright?" Belle whispers against his open mouth, quickening the pace of her left hand and cradling the back of his head with her right, "I think we're nearly out of time…"

And he roughly grunts his assent: _yes,_ it's okay to caress his cock while she talks a bit of dirty talk. _Yes,_ it's alright to touch her soft, full lips to his mouth. _Yes,_ it's okay to fuck him as if both their lives depend on it (which they do). But first—but first…

No one would suspect Nicholas Rush of being a romantic, and certainly no one would suspect him of being a gentleman, but he _will not_ rut against this brave woman dead set on saving his hide without so much as properly kissing her first.

He reaches up to take Belle's wrist in his hand and pulls it from his hair. Lowering his eyes, he brushes his lips against her smooth, warm palm.

_"Thank you,"_ Rush whispers against the skin, and her eyes—so vividly blue—are a bit watery when he next looks up at her. Afterwards, she smiles and stands, pulling him to stand also. Thank God, his erection is still very much present and eager for what is to come.

Belle steps on the toe of each shoe to remove it, shimmies off her pants, then shrugs off her twill jacket. He does his utmost not to notice her knickers are a demure, white cotton, the very sort he favors. She bites her lower lip, watching him watching her. Her breath comes hard and quick, and Rush hopes it's desire and not fear that makes her slender shoulders rise and fall so rapidly.

She gives him a bit of privacy, stretching out on the narrow berth and waiting for him to carefully ease his jeans over the swell of his erection and to step out of his boots. His gray boxer briefs tent outwards ridiculously, and his narrow chest is sunken. _Surely she was making it all up for his benefit._

He turns to Belle, and her knees are bent and parted, ready to welcome him save for the demure cotton barrier. She's trembling—it's nearly imperceptible—and he pities her. She's been so brave since this all began.

"Would you—go on top?" he asks quietly. "I'd rather that…we do that—" and she nods quickly, her pink tongue darting out to touch her lips. He notices, trying to modestly cover the strained fabric of his briefs, that his own hands are shaking.

Rush takes her place on the bench, and it's been warmed a little by her back. She carefully straddles him, her knees barely fitting on either side of his narrow hips.

"I need to—is it alright if I wet you a bit?" Belle asks, her voice sounding very different now from the low, lilting siren she played only minutes ago with her clothes on. "I'm nervous, and it will help…"

Rush nods jerkily, and she gently tugs his briefs lower, exposing the full, flushed head of his cock. She wets him with soft, cautious licks of her warm tongue. After glancing up at his glassy eyes briefly, she ducks her chin and begins to suckle him softly, tugging his underpants lower so she can ease the full length of him into her hot mouth.

It's been _so fucking long,_ that he needs to grit his teeth and dig his fingernails into the smooth rubber bench to keep from bucking upwards. Yet when Belle sweeps her flat tongue up the length of him, lapping and wetting him further, his back arches involuntarily. He's desperate for her to stop the gentle suckling and the careful licks—to set a rhythm that will bring him off. _Oh God._

Without thinking, Rush's hand darts out to grasp the back of her head, burying itself in her silky hair, and his hips begin to rock up, jerkily. "_Ah—ah fuck,"_ he whispers, then remembers himself and quickly lets go, apologizing.

"It's alright—that's alright—" Belle murmurs, taking her mouth from his glistening prick and pressing a wet little kiss to his jutting hipbone. She straightens her back and lifts her t-shirt over her head, displaying the tops of her lovely, girlish breasts, cradled in more of the same demure, white cotton.

"Skin to skin…" she whispers and reaches for the hem of his green vest, helping him extract his arms, then lifting his green cotton tee up over his head.

There's not much left between them, just her white cotton knickers, his lowered briefs, and their threadbare socks. Belle exhales slowly, then dismounts the bench and slides the cotton down off of her long, pale legs.

He looks away, giving her privacy, and he isn't watching when she straddles his wet cock, grips the base of it gently with her fist, and slowly eases herself onto it. He hisses, breathing hard, and his hips move of their own volition.

"God," she says softly, closing her eyes. And then: "Okay?"

_"Yeah, yeah…fuck_—keep going. I'm going to come fast, Belle. I'm sorry." His brow is deeply knit and the veins stand out against his temples. He's trying not to lose his mind.

Belle guides his hands to the lovely, feminine outsweep of her hips, and he helps direct her pace as she rocks against him, slowly at first, then quicker. When he moans and grips the bench, she leans down to brush the tips of her covered breasts over his chest and to brush her lips over his, her eyes wide open.

Rush's lips part beneath hers, and he tries to speak—to tell her what, he doesn't know—but it comes out as _"Eh!—ah!"_ breathed into her open mouth, and her velvety tongue flicks out to sweep across his bared teeth.

Her plush little mound of curls is grinding against his pelvis, and the moment Belle captures his slack mouth for a true kiss, they both shut their eyes, forgetting the strange room and their terrible predicament—they let it all slip away for a few fleeting moments. Rush's hand travels upwards, reverently tracing her spine and tangling in her long hair.

_"Wait! Oh, wait—"_ Belle can feel him clenching and tensing beneath her thighs. She hears the higher pitch of his wordless pleas, and stops him by slipping a finger into his mouth and pressing a hand hard against his rocking hips. "Open your eyes, Rush. _Look at me._ Put your hands on me…"

And she slows their tempo, no longer easing up and down the length of him, just rocking, rocking against his pelvis, and he grasps her perfect little ass with one hand and follows the path her fingers have traced down to the juncture of their bodies, rubbing her gently with the smooth pad of his thumb, watching as her eyes become unfocused and her teeth nearly disappear into her lower lip.

"Almost there," she whispers, "Almost—_ah!"_ and then she muffles a word: _fuck,_ was it? And he cannot resist raising his head and hastily bringing her lips down to his, eager to devour this little profanity and the lovely look of abandon that contorts her mouth.

He growls when he feels her slick walls flutter around him. His thumb is still pressed between them—wet now—and sore from how hard Belle rode against it.

Forgetting how narrow the berth is, Rush groans and rolls her over. They tumble to the strange rubber floor, knocking the wind from both their lungs, but before either one can catch their breath, Rush's hips are shunting against her wildly, desperate for his own release.

Belle hoists her legs up around his hips, hooking her ankles, and welcomes this frantic assault, pressing her lips close to his ear, burying her hands in his hair and letting him hear her ragged breath and soft encouragements. Together, they're bringing him closer…closer—

When she grips his ass roughly, and chokes out, _"Rush,"_ his body clenches and jerks and releases. He buries his moans in her sweet, open mouth, while she helps him to rock slowly against her until the last spasm has passed and the last of the liquid heat has been wrung from him. Rush lies exhausted on top of her, unable to so much as roll off.

While she pets his long, mussed hair, he realizes he's still shaking. They're _both_ shaking. Belle is brushing soft, careful kisses to his temple, cautious not to dislodge the neurotransmitter.

After a few minutes have passed and the shaking has dissolved into ragged breathing, she reaches down and lifts his wrist to eye level, checking his watch. "Less than five minutes now," she murmurs, offering him a small, tender smile. "Whatever happens, I won't leave your side, understand?"

He nods, grateful. If these were his last moments, they were well spent.

Belle kisses his temple once more, then gives him a gentle push.

"We need to dress. It will give me courage, having my pants on."

"What you said before—is it true? Did you really…imagine me?" Rush asks, tugging on his shirt. "It doesn't matter now," he hastily adds, "so you can tell the truth."

"Yes, I really did. _Do._ Just think of the fantasy fodder I'll have now, if we live long enough for me to put it to good use. Rough sex in Destiny's corridors will seem positively tame. Here, let me…"

And she reaches over to buckle his belt.

One moment Belle in concentrating on the silver belt buckle and the tiny holes in the leather, and the next she's alone, surrounded by large, green leaves and the soft patter of rain.

Spinning around frantically, she calls, _"Rush!"_

And, _oh thank God,_ off in the distance she hears his hoarse voice yelling her own name: _"Belle?"_

She hurries through the thick foliage in his direction, nearly running, pushing wet leaves out of the way and bursting into a clearing—the same clearing from where they were taken. Rush is standing by the Stargate, looking around wildly. When he sees her, he also takes off in a loping run, and they come together in a crash of limbs, grabbing at each others' damp, wrinkled clothes.

"I think we may have missed them," Rush says, glancing over at the looming, motionless Stargate. "We cannot dial it. We may have been left behind."

"We'll find a way to catch up," she promises. "And in the meantime, we'll be alright. I grew up in the outback, and you've been left behind before and lived to tell the tale. One problem at a time, Rush."

And she finishes buckling his belt.


End file.
